To ask the hardest thing you have ever been through

OP my childhood 😞

My mother died unexpectedly and traumatically. I live the closest and was with her in A&E and had to break the news to the rest of my family. My exH was completely unsupportive and his behaviour went from fairly unacceptable to outrightly abusive before she was even buried. I broke up with him 3 months later.

Finding my dead father and trying to resuscitate him
Living through a year of my son wanting to kill himself and getting absolutely no professional support. Had to leave my job, and get a loan to pay for private therapy. My son is alive and well today. My job meant nothing in comparison.

Dealing with dying animals, sometimes in the sort of pain that does not need a vet to resolve but I didn’t have the bravery to do it. I will next time.

dealing with a house move due to divorce while my Mum was dying

A visit to my parents house from the police saying my oldest sister was missing presumed dead. She had gone to a party on the river boat the Marchioness in 1989 and a Dredger hit the boat. Over fifty people died but thankfully my sister was rescued and unhurt but we didn't find out until the next day.

It was an unimaginable horror and the loss of so many vibrant and young people.

Getting back from my honeymoon at 23 to find my Dad was ill. He died from cancer 5 months later.

Finding out my son's developmental delay and ultimate life long disability was caused by medication I was prescribed.

I'm so sorry, OP, that you are having a tough time. There will be sunshine behind the clouds, and the rain uktimately causes the clouds to disappear.💞

This thread is devastating to read. Thanks to all those who have responded to what I wrote earlier.
Just so you know it is almost 11 years since my little boy died (he should be in his first year at secondary school now) and although I will never get over losing him I've had a little girls since. They are now 8 and 9. I wasn't sure if I was able to have more children as a month before he died I had a ruptured ectopic (it was an awful year), and lost a tube.
Life is liveable again, it's actually pretty good, I have to live because he never really got the chance.
I don't believe in heaven but if I do ever see my son again and he asks what life was like, I need to be able to tell him about the world.

Thank you so much for everything you did xx

And me.
Watching her wasting away as she is right now, and hearing her say she wants to die, is the hardest thing I have ever gone through.
So sorry for the awful things other
posters have gone through.

It’s a tie between watching my Dad die slowly and painfully of cancer over roughly 8 months

or

already being in the depths of hell with an 8 week old baby who didn’t sleep and only stopped screaming to take a breath, when my Mum very suddenly and unexpectedly died, and I had to deal with it completely alone.

I just want to say I hear you to everyone who’s shared and posted

A head injury, post concussion syndrome for a year, losing my ability to read and write,,having so many physical symptoms of post concussion syndrome that I literally couldn't think and lost my ability to see in my mind's eye permanently... then, after going to hell and back with that, I then had a huge breakdown after not sleeping for a week.

I was then polydrugged for help with the post concussion syndrome symptoms, before an off label antipsychotic prescribed for the severe anxiety and insomnia injured me permanently with a medication induced neurological involuntary movement disorder called tardive dyskinesia that is a bit like Tourette's and Parkinson's disease combined 😢

Then, living with the most bizarre and horrifying movement disorder symptoms where I literally lost control of my body movements. One minute, I'd be lip smacking, the next I was making kissing noises with my mouth, or my toes and fingers would wiggle, my abdominal muscles contracted so I bent forward at the waist, my eyes rolled upwards and would lock in that position, my hands would turn inwards at the wrists, my tongue would writhe around in mh mouth on its own... the list went on. All because of a drug meant to help me cause chaos in my brain and buggered up my dopamine function.

Oh, and living with this crap for years so it waxed and waned, getting worse with the strangest and most innocuous substances like antifungal cream, or soy sauce, or flea treatment, or artificial sweeteners, or calcium vitamin pills... and any medication i thought I might need to take, I'd be overly worried and cautious in case it set off symptoms.

I could say so much more about so many other horrendous symptoms of a similar movement disorder called akathisia which coincides with the one I have, but I'm sure it's not that interesting 🤔

Some days I absolutely hate my body and what it has put me through and will continue to do forever. There's no cure unfortunately, and no doubt my hormones during menopause might have an effect too. I have had many moments over the past decade when I've truly wanted to not be here. There by the grace of God go all of us 😢😞

Sending love to everyone who has shared on here.

It also lets us know that we are not alone in our trauma.

I also went through a nasty divorce, but the most awful thing that happened to me was losing my daughter age 26 due to a botched minor medical procedure. She was such a lovely, kind, pretty hardworking girl and I miss her every day

I was not going to post, but here I am
Working through Covid19 pandemic. Being scared for myself. Scared for patients and the overfuckingwhelming stress of having to do it all again, every single day

So very sorry! Cannot imagine 💔💔

Losing my father to vascular dementia - not so much his death but the manner of it. Over the space of a year watching my clever , funny lovely dad disappearing before my eyes , and the fear in his when in increasingly rare moments of lucidity he realised what was happening to him. Definitely one of the cruellest deaths

My brothers death. Won't go into the terrible detail of it but it has fundamentally changed me. Still adapting to it 2.5 years on.
My Mums dementia though is like a thousand paper cuts. I lost my dad quite suddenly when I was younger. This is worse for me.

ive been through a lot. Friends that attempted and the few that succeeded in ending their lives. Being surrounded by addiction, violence growing up. 6 miscarriages and abuse from them partner that it was my fault. Abuse from parents. The complex trauma that comes from not being believed when you have a disabled child and have to fight for everything inc diagnosis. Cheating spouse who lied from day one and that broke me, took away my last fertile years with his lies so just one child when I’d have liked more; it’s a complicate one.

but the worst, because it still ripples now was a culmination of things leading to the realisation my mother resented my existence and clearly treated me very different to my siblings and I guess the start of it all was her lying about who my father was and eventually telling me around 9 like it was nothing. Then the abuse from my step father ramped up, maybe ot just started. Who knows. she just made me move house and school over and over not caring much for my well-being. She tried to move me again right before I was about to take my exam meaning I’d not be able to take them as different exam board. I refused and lied about my age to rent a room.

low and then No contact ever since. It’s damaged me.

Still dealing with it I guess. I trust easily but don’t trust.

Yes, same. People don't know what to say or how to act around you so they don't engage, possibly afraid they'll say the wrong thing but I'd rather they say the wrong thing then nothing at all.

I understand, I wish I could’ve held your hand through that. Seeing someone in the throes of horrific depression makes a agonising. My mother suffered terribly, I hated her pain.

I hope and pray she never suffers again.

Seeing your child in such pain, you would do anything.

X

@Youngishh

Thank you so much for this thread. I hope you are ok too x

I got married super young, aged 20, but only for a year. My husband at the time strangled me and I thought i was going to die. I’ve never told anyone this, except from the police. I hope your divorce goes well and you feel as good as I did when I got the absolute!!